


This Is How It All Happens

by beng



Series: Lucky Heart [4]
Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Translation, Translation from Russian, some Treasure of the Sun episode spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beng/pseuds/beng
Summary: Laura has moonlight in her surname and sunshine in her heart, and something definitely needs to be done about that.Translation of KatrinaKeynes' "На самом деле", posted with permission.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney, Past Laura Moon/Shadow Moon
Series: Lucky Heart [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793143
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22





	This Is How It All Happens

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [На самом деле](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532042) by [KatrinaKeynes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatrinaKeynes/pseuds/KatrinaKeynes). 



This is how it all happens in fairy tales: the fair princess is cursed, she's saved by a knight in shining armour, and they live happily ever after.

This is how it all happens in real life: the princess dies, she tries to save her prince—so far, unsuccessfully—and then lies to herself until the end of her days. Actually, what do you even count as the end, when the end is where it all began: from a night, screeching brakes, and the shadow of a leprechaun on the tarmac.

There's so much irony in there that Laura doesn't even want to think about it. But, had she known more than is fit to know for a girl who doesn't believe in anything...

This is how it's sung in the Poetic Edda: before the very end of the world, the giant, deceived Fenris-wolf will break his bonds forged from the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, from bear sinews, fish breath, and bird spittle, and he will devour the sun. Hel will sink her hands like hooks into Baldr, both the live and the dead one, and hold him with all her might, while Naglfar ploughs the sky and the world serpent swallows Thor.

This is how it happens in real life: Thor shot himself in 1932, and the sun is resting in the chest of a dead wife who looks neither like a wolf, nor Loki's daughter... Although, that depends on one's point of view. Fenrir did eat Odin in the end, and that's certainly a ray of hope. But, for all her efforts, Hel will fail to keep Baldr in any of the nine worlds and innumerable universes, because, to be fair, he was never hers to begin with.

Laura has moonlight in her surname and sunshine in her heart, and something definitely needs to be done about that. The world loves balance, even if it ambles towards it through drowsy paths of New Orleans, through Egyptian funeral parlours, and a spear wrought by the dark alvar.

This is how it all happens in picture books worth half a kingdom: the villains get punished, and the heroes ride off into the sunset.

This is how it all happens in real life: a dead princess and her murderer traipse around the country, looking for someone to make a deal with, and they don't quite give a damn whether this someone might turn out to be the thirteenth fairy or an evil wizard, or a couple of tricksters that love opening the eyes of other people and watching how such revelations ruin lives, afterlives, and deathless wandering.

Laura leaves New Orleans alone and tries to convince herself that she's in love with her prince. In the fairy tale, the princess exchanged her tail for feet, so she could walk on knives and drown in pain. Laura exchanged her peace for a search of meaning, but who could guarantee that she will like the answer?

In the pocket of her flowery dress, which she should have burned right after that night but which she can't even take off, softly clinks a vial of new life—a better life, because otherwise what's the point of second chances? In the bottle, missing only a 'Drink me' label, slosh Laura's future smiles, the taste of food on her tongue, and touches. She tries not to think too much about the latter. Laura opens her eyes and expects to see a black-and-white world in which the only beacon is her past, her only meaning, but the damn world gains colour once more: the green of the grass and the gold of the sun; bleak but discernible. Laura didn't ask for that. But who gets only what they ask for, anyway?

This is how it all happens in Disney cartoons: the prince kisses the princess, and she wakes from her cursed sleep.

This is how it all happens in real life: Laura hauls on her shoulders the body of a six-foot-five leprechaun felled by her husband's hand, and doesn't quite understand how she even ended up in such situation. Why she came back to Cairo. And what exactly she spew in the face of all the gods in that room where Yggdrasil was spreading all its nine worlds.

"I still need to save my poor prince," Laura will say later, once she'll have filled the vial with the love that gushes with the blood from someone else's body: it looks like molten sunbeams.

"As if it could've been fucking otherwise," will answer her the king of an emerald world, so ancient that he's forgotten his own self.

Princesses often talk to birds, right? Especially once they stop running from themselves.

This is how it's all sung by the skalds: the world will burn, and a new land will emerge from the ocean, and Baldr will bring with himself a new spring.

This is how it will all happen in real life: the world will remain green and ancient, young and grey, and gods will believe in the dead, and the dead will believe in themselves.

And the sun will rise again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Latvian, translating from Russian to English, don't be nasty if you see any mistakes.  
> And please don't hesitate to go show some love to the author directly ;)


End file.
